The Art Cave

WILDlife at Heather James Fine Art in WY

2011-09-03T00:06:00.000-07:00

For you art enthusiasts in western Wyoming, three of my watercolors are featured in "WILDlife," a group show at Heather James Fine Art in Jackson, WY.... The opening reception is next Thursday, September 8. Also included are works by Henry Darger, Diego Giacometti, Penelope Gottlieb, Tim Hawkinson, and others.

More info at http://heatherjames.com/assets/press/jackson/WILDlife_PR.pdf

Painting Milk

2011-06-11T23:10:00.001-07:00

I started working on this watercolor a few weeks ago. The butterfly is a Lorquin's Admiral who took an obsessive liking to our car when we were in western Nevada last summer. The question I have to ask myself is how many unfinished watercolors can I stack on my drawing table (which is little more than a rickety keyboard stand)? At this point, I have a pile of four...

I did some of the wet-in-wet glass shadows first, in case they didn't go so well...

Time has flown by, and it's almost done at this point... Just need to darken some shadows and even out some asymmetries.

Okay, now it's really almost almost done. With watercolor the command to stop sometimes has to come from the materials. If you insist on plowing ahead the punishment is murk. The title of this painting, "Milk," comes from the word on the glass.

Back to the fishbowl

2011-04-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

I'm back to work on this fishbowl watercolor, which I started in November but first had to finish the two newer paintings resting on top of it. Below this is another drawing board with an unfinished watercolor I started in 2008. Below that is an even older drawing board and below that layers of I don't know what... Keep digging down, and at some point you hit limestone with trilobite fossils, I imagine.

To get updates about the latest work, try liking my artist page on Facebook (by clicking here and then pressing the "Like" button):

(You can always unlike me later, if you like.)

Larger than life this time

2011-03-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

They say you can't fix mistakes in watercolor, but this is not quite true. In addition to various means of making minor corrections, such as scrubbing, blotting, and scratching off color, you can also make more drastic changes using a little technique I like to call "starting over."

Okay, this doesn't always get a laugh among non-artists, but thanks anyway. In the case of today's painting, I started over in order to make it larger, and to change the subject's body pose downward to a (hopefully) more dramatic angle, accentuating the weight of the key.

I'm almost finished...

Look for my watercolor at Incognito 2011

2011-02-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

This new untitled watercolor study is just off the drawing board.
Size: 8 x 6 in.

I'm sorry I will be unable to attend Incognito in person -- that is, the annual fundraiser art sale for the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Each year all the "can't miss" events seem to want to pile up on the same handful of weekends, and April 30, the date of Incognito this year, is shaping up to be a third-degree conflict magnet. I won't test your patience by ticking off the other events piled onto that day on my calendar. I'm just sorry because this is a fun free-for-all, in which people scramble to buy work by hundreds of artists, some famous, some emerging, and all the same size and bargain priced to move. The catch is the work is displayed anonymously, so you must trust your lust, as they say. You get to find out who created the artwork you just bought only after you pick it up. If you are considering going, I suggest buying a ticket at one of the higher levels (for example, "Patron"). It's more expensive, but the higher price includes a voucher for an artwork, and the remainder of the ticket price is tax deductable. More critically, the fancy ticket gets you priority entrance to the event, which is critical because most of the best work sells in the first few minutes. Get there early in any case. And look for my little watercolor on the wall somewhere... Am I cheating by posting an image here? Perhaps, but those who know my work will recognize it anyway, and those who don't are probably not reading this.

Thanks for your support!

re:FORM at Honor Fraser Gallery

2011-02-05T23:24:00.000-08:00

Hi. This is a brand new new watercolor named "Blacky." Someone may be supporting a good cause by taking this painting home and hanging it on their wall later this week...

It will appear in re:FORM, an auction event happening on Feb 10 at Honor Fraser Gallery in Culver City to benefit the Drug Policy Alliance. If you are interested in attending this auction, offering works by such artists as Ed Ruscha, Frank Gehry, Jane Callister, Seonna Hong, Ed Moses, Lawrence Weiner and many others, you can learn more at www.reformartauction.org.

New watercolor

2010-06-19T14:57:00.001-07:00

This watercolor is just off the drawing board...

Shot, 2010, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

Some detail views...
The closer you get, the more watercolory it becomes.

Painting Proof

2010-05-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some more in-process images from the studio, this time for "Proof." This watercolor, along with twenty other recent paintings, are in my solo show at Left Coast Galleries in Studio City through May 25, 2010.

I started by masking off the foreground areas, using cut out drawing paper sealed around the edges with drafting tape, plus a little liquid frisket for the antennae and various irregular edges. Then painted the background wet-in-wet, and scrubbed out those circular shapes with a damp bristle brush after the whole thing was dry.

Next, lightly washed in the foreground hues. The citrus wedge is already too dark, but I'm hoping to scrub some of that off. Watercolor has a reputation for being unforgiving, but you can make adjustments as you go. You just can't go back to square one. Every mark is a commitment.

I gradually darkened the butterfly and glass shadows, and lightened the citrus wedge by rewetting and lifting off color. Slightly darkened some of the light areas of the table to make that refracted highlight look whiter than white.

Then layered washes on the butterfly wing, and darkened the abdomen...

Added some pale blue in the blur zone at the edge of the table, corrected the curve of the glass lip, lightened some of the cast shadows and added some diffraction rainbow effects. Okay, wow, am I really painting butterflies and rainbows now? It's like some 14-year-old girl is telling me what to do...

Anyway, that's it! Thanks for dropping by...

Images from the studio

2010-05-09T21:55:00.000-07:00

People often ask me for details about the watercolor process. Here are some pictures from the studio...

"Embrace" on the drawing table with all my tools.
Nearly finished.

Just getting started on "Pointed"

First the barbed wire, very lightly.

Taped off some of these criss-crossing wires with drafting tape while painting the background, which got too dark, so I had to lighten it with a damp toothbrush.

Taped off the birds and wire using drafting tape and then painted the sky using a subdued wet in wet technique.

Now the feathers, one at a time. But I had to use a small bristle brush to restore the convexity of this dove's back before continuing. This is another way of making minor corrections.

Starting on the top dove.

Top dove is still looking kind of watery at this stage. With staining pigments such as quinacridones and phthalocyanines, you can go over and over without the colors muddying much... You just have to be careful not to go too far. It's hard to make dark colors lighter with these pigments.

Darkening the wires...

Almost finished.

Scratched off some highlights with a dull x-acto knife, which I also used to clean up some of the edges for a crisp, sharp-focus effect

Done! I had this one on the drawing board longer than usual... about five weeks. If you haven't seen the show yet, it will at Left Coast Galleries in Studio City until May 25. Thanks for looking!

Solo show continues through May 25, 2010

2010-04-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

Tilt, 2010, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

Thanks everyone who came out last night and helped make the opening for "Enigmas and Elegies" such a success. Featuring over twenty of my recent paintings, this show explores the transparency and delicacy of watercolor applied to a number of delicate subjects. If you missed the opening, worry not! The show continues through May 25, 2010. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday 11 am - 6 pm, and Sundays 12 - 5 pm.

Solo show at Left Coast Galleries

2010-04-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

Please join us for the opening of "Enigmas and Elegies," a solo show of my latest watercolors at Left Coast Galleries in Studio City, CA from 6 - 9 pm on Saturday April 24, 2010. This show will continue through May 25.

Left Coast Galleries
12324 Ventura Boulevard
Studio City, CA 91604
www.leftcoastgalleries.com

Some new watercolors

2010-04-03T00:39:00.000-07:00

I have been busy painting some new watercolors for my upcoming solo show at Left Coast Galleries in Studio City...

Pointed, 2010, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

Small pane, 2010, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

Proof, 2010, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

Embrace, 2010, watercolor, 8 x 6 in.

Icy, 2009, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

Some new work

2009-09-20T01:37:00.000-07:00

Flutes, 2009, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

Wine glass, 2009, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

Pixie, 2009, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

Flicker, 2009, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

Reflect, 2009, watercolor, 6 x 8 in.

Bell, 2009, watercolor, 7 x 10 in.

Note, 2009, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

Clear, 2009, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

Some of these paintings are still available at Left Coast Galleries in Studio City, CA.

Brawl, step by step

2009-08-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Some notes on the execution of one of my large watercolors, for which I had the presence of mind to snap some in-process photos (a rare event)…

First, the top of the mug and the swallowtails were masked off while I painted in the dark background. The masking was done with cut out pieces of ordinary drawing paper sealed at the edges with thin strips of drafting tape, plus a little masking fliud for the fine lines, such as the legs..

That dark background color is a tarry concoction of Phthalo Blue (green shade), Quinacridone Magenta, and Lunar Black (an iron oxide watercolor by Daniel Smith). I actually squeeze the paint from the tubes into a small cup and mix with a little water until it’s nearly as runny as India ink, but much denser. Lunar black in this concentration produces an amazingly soft, velvety black which you can thin at the edges to produce interesting granulation effects. But the caveat is that if you try to paint over this layer, it will turn to mud, so the paint application needs to be accomplished in one pass.

The masked areas produce a hard edge, which I softened with a small bristle brush on the trailing edge of the butterfly wings. The edge of the table in the background was not masked, but painted very carefully in a straight line with clean water to let the still-damp black bleed down, producing a soft graduated effect. You can lay a ruler down on the dry part and use it to guide not the brush but rather your hand as you pull the brush along. A hair dryer is invaluable to fix the paint before the bleeding gets out of hand.

Then I painted in the “background” colors of the wings with benzimidazolone (Winsor) yellow with a slight amount of quinacridone magenta. This yellow has to be all finished before I start to add the black, because I don’t want to bleed the black into any of the yellow spots. The shadows on the table surface are put in wet-in-wet using phthalo blue and quinacridone magenta. Yes, I don’t keep many colors on my palette, but I do get to know them rather well.

The most important thing in watercolor is to decide early on which areas are going to be white and to be sure to keep these clean. White is not on your palette -- it's on the paper when you start, so you must take care not to lose it. You can mask these areas off or just be very careful not to let them ever get wet. They will be the focal point of the whole composition. In this case, the highlights on the handle are pure white (unpainted paper), and the foam sticking to the glass is close to white (with just a very thin wash).

I start putting the spots on the butterflies with Payne’s Gray. These can be darkened later with Lunar Black, where required. The mug is painted with quinacridone magenta, winsor yellow, phthalo blue (green shade), and Payne’s Gray, starting light and gradually increasing the contrast and color intensity with subsequent washes. This is the advantage of using these stubborn staining pigments – you can go over them repeatedly to increase saturation with disturbing the previous washes much. The effect over time should like a developing photo, with the image starting to appear at low contrast and then gradually becoming more intense. If you go too far, that is if you get too dark, it’s very hard to go back. But not impossible...

For example, I neglected to mask off all the legs of the top butterfly, and consequently I had to dig some of them out from that thick tarry black stuff using a bristle brush. I could not get them all the way back to white, because the phthalo blue in the mix penetrates the paper too deeply. This is why those legs appear blue, and the top antenna is especially dark.

BEFORE:

You can see the botched masking and the soft blue areas where I have worked at scrubbing the black pigment off in the above enlargement. Often a watercolor goes through a difficult period where it seems like it could not possibly work out, but just as often the signs of that struggle is what makes it most interesting. I find that the paintings I had the most trouble with are the ones people seem most attracted to.

AFTER:

So this is the top butterfly again after being laboriously "fixed." I scratched off a few highlights with an x-acto knife, and cleaned the edges of the scrubbed legs and antenna to get a harder edge, where required. I’ve learned the hard way that after distressing the paper in this way (scrubbing or scratching), you cannot wash over it again, because the torn paper fibers suck the paint in undesirable directions via capillary action. But you can very carefully stipple in tiny dots of paint if you freeze them with the hair dryer before they take off in unexpected directions. Experience is the best teacher. Eventually you get a feel for how much abuse your paper will take before it turns back into pulp.

The last steps just involve increasing contrast with repeated washes to increase the reality effect. With staining colors like phthalo blue, winsor yellow, and quinacridone magenta, you can really crank it up. I think people are surprised at the appearance of my watercolors mostly because of this contrast, and because of the depth of the black backgrounds.

That's it! I'm sorry I did not get to hang this one on the wall very long. I framed it as soon as it was dry, delivered it to a gallery the next day, and it was sold in a heartbeat. So it goes...

Book release, tiger beetle show

2009-06-20T02:32:00.000-07:00

But first, the bad news...

My upcoming show at the Bakersfield Museum of Art next year has been cancelled due to major budget cuts. Well, that's just life here in the Great Recession, it seems. Right, onwards...

Mortal Dilemmas and Narrow Escapes

Book cover

Left Coast Galleries has published a hard-cover art book featuring my recent watercolor paintings, along with a concise introductory essay. It's very handsome and is sure to enhance the appearance of any coffee table.

If you want your own copy, you can contact Left Coast Galleries
at 818-760-7010.

Or you can preview it and even buy it online at blurb.com.

Salt Creek Environment conservation exhibit
in Lincoln, Nebraska

I am pleased to be participating in "Salt Creek Environment: Local and Endangered," an entomology/conservation-themed exhibit at the Haydon Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska. Opening on July 10, this show will feature 23 artists who have completed works involving the endangered salt creek tiger beetle, one of the rarest insects in the world. This beetle, and the unique inland saline marsh in which it lives, is currently threatened by encroaching development and habitat degradation.

Curated by entomologist Tierney Brosius at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, the exhibit is funded in part by the Nebraska Environmental Trust, the Saline Wetland Partnership, and the Xerces Society.

Spotted, watercolor, 2009, 20 x 15 in.

Spring Art News

2009-04-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

So now it's spring, the season of growth and renewal, and we find ourselves bouncing along the bottom, one hopes, of the current economic slump -- the Great Recession, as some are calling it, or the Big Dip, if you prefer. Despite the current atmosphere of austerity and anxiety, it seems a perfect time for savvy art collectors to be doing some bargain hunting, especially at auctions and charity events, where low turnout amidst the new frugality means great deals on fine art are waiting to be discovered. As it happens, I'm participating in two such upcoming fundraiser events...

Incognito at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

The first of these is Incognito, the Santa Monica Museum of Art's annual fundraiser, at Bergamot Station on Saturday, May 2, from 7 to 10 pm. This is a fun free-for-all of an art sale, featuring works by over 400 artists, some famous and some emerging, all the same size, all displayed anonymously, and all priced at just $300. In most cases, this price is a small fraction of the work's market value, but the real pleasure of this event is watching so many people trusting their first glance, plunging into the unknown, and taking home as a result one or more fabulous artworks.

Because most of the work is sold within the first fifteen minutes, I recommend that anyone interested in buying tickets for this event should consider the Patron level in order to get priority admission, and come early in any case... The $600 Patron entry price for two includes one prepaid artwork ($300 value) and the rest is tax-deductable. Participating artists this year include John Baldessari, Kristin Calabrese, Ed Ruscha, Exene Cervenka, Meg Cranston, Urs Fischer, Salomón Huerta, Rebecca Morris, Leonard Nimoy, John Outterbridge, Raymond Pettibon, Allen Ruppersberg, Alison Saar, Eleanor Antin, and hundreds of others, including myself. You can see a video from last year's event here... More information at www.smmoa.org.

Venice Art Walk & Auction

I will also be participating in the Venice Art Walk Auction on Sunday, May 17, 11:30 am - 5:30 pm, at 1010 Abbott Kinney Blvd in Venice.

This is another great chance to find bargains on high-quality art by a similarly distinguished lineup of contemporary artists, and admission to the silent auction is free... That is, you don't have to be a registered artwalk participant to stroll through the auction or to bid on any of the hundreds of artworks offered... You just need to find a place to park in Venice on a crazy busy weekend -- so ride your bike or bring the Smart Car. Proceeds from art sales benefit the Venice Family Clinic.

My contribution to the auction (Thick) is pictured below...

You can learn more about the event at www.venicefamilyclinic.org.

Thick, 2009, watercolor, 8 x 6 in.

Entomology show in Lincoln, NB

On the more distant horizon, my work will appear this July in "Salt Creek Environment: Local and Endangered," not a charity event but a conservation-themed exhibit at the Haydon Gallery in Lincoln, NB, which features 23 artists who have completed works involving the endangered salt creek tiger beetle, one of the rarest insects in the world.

Organized by the entomology department at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, the exhibit is funded in part by the Nebraska Environmental Trust, the Saline Wetland Partnership, and the Xerces Society.

Read more about salt creek tiger beetles at www.xerces.org.

Spotted, 2009, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

More images of recent work and other news at www.paulpitsker.com.

Spring forward and other news

2009-03-07T01:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, first can I tell you how happy I am that we are getting Daylight Saving Time already this weekend? I know it's just minor seismic slippage of the clocks, but as a semi-professional insomniac it somehow makes the night seem a little less endless.

In other news, my work is featured in the current issue of Watercolor magazine. It's kind of a practical, how-to mag about the nuts and bolts of the medium, but they seemed to enjoy the bugs:

Please stay tuned for news about upcoming art events I'm involved in, such as Incognito at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, the Venice Art Walk & Auction, an entomology/conservation exhibit this summer in Lincoln, NB, an upcoming show at the Bakersfield Art Museum, and more...

Meanwhile, here are some watercolors just off the drawing board...

Brawl, 2009, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

Alight, 2009, watercolor, 8 x 6 in.

Glow, 2008, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

If you're curious about that backwards signature, it's how I sign all my work. It was a script I used in my journal when I was young to keep the ink from smearing... a left-handed thing, basically. I like how it helps keep the signature from being too conspicuous as a visual element in the paintings.

Thanks for looking in!

East of Eden

2008-09-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

Quick note on 'East of Eden" at the L.A. Municipal Gallery in Hollywood. This is not so much an exhibition as a three-day art fair, and last night's gala opening was like a happening party. Each of the 14 participating galleries presented a selection of their artists representing the art scene east of downtown. I was especially mesmorized by the work of Robert Horvath, whose glossy, glowing paintings of biomorphic shapes and radiant light I have previously admired at Bert Green Fine Art. I also enjoyed the breezy abstractions of Elana Kundell, presented by Gallery Revisited. Her brushstrokes seem fresh, spontaneous and untethered, as if they are floating just in front of the panels on which she paints.

Robert Horvath, "o.o.y.l", oil on panel

Elana Kundell, "Dissolution No. 9", oil on panel

There was an interesting lounge area set up out on the terrace, with a big glowing fluorescent telescopic kind of opti-gadget that was too crowded to examine at close range, regrettably. Many visitors were happily drumming a groovy beat on the musically engineered furniture, and a stylish young woman was serving absinthe in test tubes (poured through an elaborate stainless steel apparatus). The green fairy is incredibly sweet, it turns out -- it was something like drinking a licorice Altoid, not that I should find anything to object to in that.

"East of Eden continues through today, September 21, 2008. Participating galleries include La Luz de Jesus, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Black Maria, drkrm Gallery, Gallery Revisited, Ghetto Gloss, Junc Gallery, Materials & Applications, Metro Gallery, Thinkspace, Bert Green Fine Art, Acuna Hansen, David Patton, Farmlab and De Soto.

Recent work at Bergamot Station

2008-08-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

This new watercolor and two other recent paintings (Dazzled and Allure, shown in a previous post) are in a group show at Bergamot Station Arts Complex in Santa Monica...

(NOTE: I have removed the gallery name and contact info some time after this event, since they no longer show my work)

Remember, watercolor, 2008, 20 x 15 in.

Dazzled

2008-08-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

This small watercolor is just off the drawing board...

Dazzled, watercolor, 2008, 10 x 7 in.

These ten-striped june beetles were out in force each night during our recent stay in the eastern Sierras (south of Carson City, NV). I told the two who posed for me that I would make them famous -- and they bought it !

August art update

2008-08-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

I'm just back in the studio again after a very peaceful desert roadtrip with the family to western NV and the Sierras. A few new watercolors are fresh off the drawing board, and still more are in process. The model for this first painting was a rowdy luna moth very generously given to me by local artist Lynn Hanson when we visited her beautiful studio on the Venice Art Walk (thanks!).

Mixer, 2008, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

This mantis was also very kindly donated to the arts by a local science teacher
(Thanks, Mr. A!)

Allure, 2008, watercolor, 7 x 10 in.

More new paintings are in process, and new images will be posted soon.

In other news, my work was featured in the Aug 2008 issue of Bootleg Magazine:

You can read the interview here, if you're truly curious...

Many thanks for looking in!

Recent work

2008-06-22T01:12:00.000-07:00

Some new watercolors just off the block...

Prop, 2008, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

Fly, 2008, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

This, 2008, watercolor, 18 x 14 in.

I'm working on a larger piece involving the same luna moth as in Fly. More images coming soon...

Venice Artwalk & Auction: Sunday, May 18

2008-05-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

One of my recent watercolor paintings will be included in the Venice Artwalk silent auction, which includes over 400 artworks donated to this fundraiser by Los Angeles-area and Venice Art Walk artists. The artwalk allows you to explore over 60 different artist studios in the area -- some of these are truly amazing spaces. The silent auction is open to the public, while artwalk studio tour tickets are $50 per person. This is a great opportunity to start or add to an art collection, as these donated works can sell for less than normal gallery prices. And all proceeds benefit the Venice Family Clinic, which provides free healthcare to low-income, uninsured, and homeless patients.

What: Venice Art Walk & Auction
When: Sunday, May 18, 2008, 11 am - 5 pm
Where: 1010 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA

You can find a map here.

More information at at www.paulpitsker.com

My contribution:

Steamed, 2008, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

Many thanks for your interest!

2008-04-24T01:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks to some last minute additions (made possible by many hours of heroic driving by a generous friend), the show that opens tonight at Left Coast Galleries in Studio City, CA will include a number of my paintings never before shown in L.A.

Chill, 2008, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

Gripping, 2007, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

Message, 2007, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

Drink, 2008, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

Left Coast Galleries
12324 Ventura Boulevard
Studio City, CA 91604
818-760-7010

When: April 24 - May 29, 2008
Hours: Mon - Sat 11 - 6, Sun 12 - 6

Reception: Thursday, April 24, 2008, 6 - 9 pm.

More images and news of other upcoming events can be found at www.paulpitsker.com

Many thanks for your interest and support!

April art news

2008-04-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

Hey, my painting in the current 2nd City show ("California Visual Artists") is on the cover of this week's Long Beach District Weekly...

Sucker [detail], on the cover of the Long Beach District Weekly, Vol. 1 Issue 52

That show runs through April 10. I am also in a group show called Spirits of Los Angeles at Barnsdall Art Park in Hollywood (and at the Los Angeles International Airport), that runs through April 20.

Meanwhile, if you're curious what's on the drawing board, I am almost done with this skipper...

Up [unfinished], watercolor, 2008, 7 x 10 in.

And just last week, I finally finished this tall glass of water...

Drink, watercolor, 2008, 20 x 15 in.

I will be showing a selection of new work at Left Coast Gallery in Studio City, opening April 24, reception 6 - 9 pm.

What else is new?

I am again participating in Incognito, the semi-annual exhibition and art sale fundraiser at the Santa Monica Museum of Art on May 3 at 7 pm. It's $100 to get in, but it's a crazy fun event, with art by a wide variety of artists, some established, some emerging and some more or less unknown. All the work is the same size, displayed anonymously and all bargain-priced at $300. The work literally flies off the walls -- it's total mayhem, as you can see in this video from the 2007 event. (Sue and I are briefly visible in the lower mid-left at around 11 - 12 seconds -- I'm the tall one with the black hat...) Anyway, just to give the 3 - 4 readers of this blog an angle, here are the pieces I am contributing to this show...

Numb, watercolor, 2008, 6 x 8 in.

Look, watercolor, 2008, 8 x 6 in.

The subject in Look and Up is a small, speedy type of butterfly called a skipper. I’ve been wanting to paint one for a while, but they are fast and hard to get close to. But finally just one flew in the open door of my studio a few months ago and landed on a toothbrush (makeshift watercolor scrubbing tool) that was lying there. Hard to beat a volunteer (or is it?)...

That freezing drip

2008-02-17T00:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know this is like the second ice bug I've coughed up in so many months, but I'm still trying to capture that perfect faux-Romantic chill. (Sometimes you need to do a few passes on an idea to realize the first take was fine.) I'm posting this one now just to share my amazement at how alarming a watercolor can look in the first few days and still come out okay in the end, not that I'm there yet. Meaning only it may not be finished yet, but you get the idea...

Some time around day 2...

Some time around day 10...

I will get there eventually.

I haven't been getting out much lately, though I did enjoy this show at Richard Heller. Also, Yun Bai's porn flowers at the newly relocated Art Murmur Gallery are pretty cool and creepy.

The L.A. Weekly Annual Biennial at Track 16, which closed yesterday, was worth seeing too (sorry if you missed it)... It was a satisfyingly broad survey of L.A. painters, and the opening party last month was a rave. I can't remember the last time I saw someone painting from a nude model while running on a treadmill, mixing drinks and babbling incoherently into a microphone to live ambient music. This was better than art school -- way cheaper too, and without all that clove cigarette smoke.

Have a great weekend!

Happy (belated) New Year

2008-01-20T22:33:00.000-08:00

Thanks everyone for helping to make 2007 such a whirlwind success, and please have a happy, healthy and entomologically fulfilling new year. Stay tuned for new art events coming in 2008...

Chill, 2008, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

This painting (above), which I just finished last week, will be shown... well, somewhere real soon. This couldn't be vaguer I know, but last minute complications are still being ironed out. It happens that this is the 60th watercolor I've completed since I began doing this work less than three years ago. This count includes a few restarts, which of course is how one makes changes in watercolor. You can see all 60 paintings on one page here, if you are curious.

Bigger news... Spirits of Los Angeles opened this afternoon at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park on Hollywood Blvd. The turnout was fabulous, and the live music definitely added to the festive atmosphere. I enjoyed meeting curator Raoul De la Sota finally, along with many of the other artists in the show (having been too ill to attend the pre-party last weekend). This show has been over two years in the planning, and includes three of my "pre-insect" oil paintings, on display at Barnsdall through April 20, plus two more at the Los Angeles International Airport. I will be speaking about my work at the gallery on Friday, Feb 1 at 7:30 pm.

Waiting, 2002, oil on canvas, 40 x 24 in.
One of my "old" paintings currently at the Los Angeles
Municipal Gallery in Hollywood.

In other news, my work will be featured in the inaugural issue of Studio Visit Magazine, which is published by Open Studios Press (Boston, MA) and will be distributed nationwide in February 2008.

More information at www.studiovisitmagazine.com.

Side, 2006, watercolor, 10 x 7 in. One of my
two paintings featured in Studio Visit Magazine.

What else is new? I am honored to be the featured guest artist currently on ProjectInSECT.com, an education/outreach/artist site devoted to increasing public awareness and understanding of insects through creative education, live painting demonstrations and exhibitions. Check out artist and Project InSECT co-founder Jessa Huebing-Reitinger's lovingly painted leaf footed bug, for starters.

More from November

2007-12-08T08:48:00.001-08:00

My show at Modern Masters Fine Art in Palm Desert went really well, and I thank those hardy friends and family members who trekked out from L.A. to take it in.

Paul Pitsker, Erasing [detail], 2007, watercolor, 20 x 15 in.

You can read more about the hot contemporary art scene in Palm Desert in Art and Antiques, if you're curious...

One highlight from the trip I have to mention was our stop at the Wheel Inn in Cabazon. Perhaps, like me, you have driven past those landmark larger-than-life dinosaurs on the 10 freeway a bizillion times without stopping -- or, even if you haven't, you may recall them from PeeWee's Big Adventure. Well, the restaurant at their feet (more or less) is so worth a visit -- at least, for an early morning breakfast it was a dream. From the vintage beaded light fixtures, to the ubiquitous steer horns and scrolling aquarium motion lamps, to the 100% rayon leopard-print shirts worn by the staff, to the petrified prospector and his mule greeting you out front, this place is the real deal -- a genuine living museum of time-warped roadside kitsch Americana. Check it out before it is lost to the outlet-center corporate franchise sprawl and tribal casino mega-development swallowing up the desert all around it.

In other news...

I see a lot of art around town but rarely get the chance to sit down and write about it. But here are some hightlights from my Saturday rounds in November...

Rico LeBrun at Koplin del Rio

I remember being greeted by the flayed and tormented figures in Rico LeBrun's Genesis as I exited my college dining hall three times daily way back in the previous century, or thereabouts. Of all the chaos and suffering depicted in that mural, I was most haunted by the figure of Job heaving his massive, crippled carcass on a rough-hewn crutch while grimacing bitterly up at the heavens. The cycle of LeBrun drawings currently showing at Koplin del Rio may be less overtly stomach-churning, but it offers no less fascinating glimpses into the process of an artist for whom drawing was clearly the preferred vehicle of offroad exploration into the darker thickets of his own psyche. While inspired by Dante's Inferno, these are not literal book illustrations. It is instead the broader horror arising from LeBrun's contemplation of eternal torment in infernal darkness that seems to have inspired these rapidly executed and expressive drawings. Their fluid gestural lines and ink washes describe intertwining figures and body parts that don't always resolve coherently but rather suggest interwoven, often symmetrical mandalas of human suffering.

Leigh Salgado at Avenue 50 Studios

I confess I looked at Leigh Salgado's recent work at Ave 50 Studios for quite some time (okay, minutes) before I realized the fragments of printed text embedded among her meticulously cut paper layers were hardly fragmentary at all when read backwords word by word. Oh, it's poetry, I thought in my distracted dullitude. It took me an embarassingly longer time to realize these were actually the remnants of player piano scrolls with song lyrics printed on them. My thoughts jumped immediately to Conlon Nancarrow, laboriously cutting his intricate and unplayable polyrhythms onto custom piano rolls in the mid-twentieth century. Salgado's work is no less intricate and laborious. Armed with an x-acto knife and a sharpie, she transforms ordinary paper into layers of complex patterns and textures resembling delicate lace, fishnet stockings, sensuous flesh, and lyrical abstraction, complemented nicely by the correspondingly complex shadows these works cast on the wall.

Tom Chambers at George Billis

Tom Chambers' beautifully staged color photographs at George Billis gallery call to mind Pre-Raphaelite paintings from the previous fin de siecle. Imagine John Everett Millais or Dante Gabriel Rossetti armed with a digital camera and you might get a sense of the painterly richness and allegorical density of these images.

Okay, that's it for now. I will be posting more new work of my own soon. Thanks for your interest, and have some happy holidays!

Do it yourself

2007-12-02T02:16:00.000-08:00

People are always asking me how they can learn to paint watercolors of bugs and toasters and stuff. And now it seems I am just nerdy enough to type up an answer. Certainly the very best teacher is experience, so you dauntless types should by all means just dive in and start painting with complete abandon. In hopes of filling in some of the autodidactic gaps, however, I have thrown together the following breezy web tutorial. Perhaps you are one of the lucky few who will find it remotely useful...

Step 1: First, find yourself a bug
It's easy. They're everywhere. But take note... It helps if your bug is really slow or, better yet, completely stiff. Mine is a tarantula hawk wasp I put to sleep when I was in high school (like 26 years ago already). When they are alive they pack a whopper of a sting, so try to find a nice quiet one like old blue here.

Step 2: Stretch your paper.
Oops – sorry, no photo for this step. Okay, just type "stretching watercolor paper" into google images and see what you get. If you're curious about the details, I prefer to work on Arches 140 lb. hot press (smooth) paper… but always stretched! This is an important step. The sponging of the paper surface during stretching is critical to make the paper more receptive to the paint. Get the paper totally soaking wet for five minutes, sponge it down flat on a smooth piece of plywood, and secure the edges with 2-inch kraft tape. Note that some artists and well-intentioned art store employees will try to tell you that painting on a watercolor block is equivalent to painting on stretched paper, but I'm here to tell you… they are all living a lie! So please stretch paper now, before you continue…

Step 3: Lay in some washes
Once your stretched paper is completely dry, start painting in some light, flat washes using just three primary colors… cyan, magenta and yellow. Hey, just like your printer! But why these three, you ask? Well, different colors are made with pigments that have other properties besides the color. With watercolor, because the medium is so thin and runny -- it's water, after all -- you really notice the other properties, like particle size, for instance. Many pigments are coarse and large-grained and slow to spread across a wet page, which is just fine for rustic landscapes and splashy duck-hunting scenes, if that's your bag. But for close-range bug work I vastly prefer fine-grained, synthetic staining pigments that won't lift off when I paint over them, and you will soon learn to love them too. Specifically, these pigments are phthalocyanine blue (green shade), quinacridone magenta, and winsor or hansa yellow. You can mix nearly every hue you might want from just these three -- well, okay, not really -- but more so than with the standard primaries red, blue and yellow. (Okay, no doubt there are those gamut-geeks out there who will want to argue this point, or to make the case for split primaries, but please save the gas for your own blog, thanks!) There's one more important thing you need to know about these colors, though… We've all heard people say how watercolor is unforgiving, and they're pretty much right on with this gripe, but here's even more bad news… these particular pigments are super-DUPER-unforgiving. They are aggressive and tenacious and stainy little bastards, so please don't let them get too dark yet! Not right here in step 3. It's sort of like adding salt when you're cooking. You can always add more later if you need it. But taking it out is… like… Well, in the watercolor biz we call this starting over.

Step 4: Fill in the background.
Using the three staining colors, plus Payne's gray, start to fill in the background. You can blot the edges of washes with paper towels to produce a gradation or blur effect. And use a hair dryer on low setting to ensure speedy and uniform drying. Otherwise pigment particles will collect at the wet/dry boundaries and form hard lines. That's fine if you want to be a hard-liner, but I prefer more subtle gradations. And for us truly obsessive types, complete control is everything... You are the artist -- take command of your medium! The overall plan with watercolor is to get the whole composition laid in at the same low contrast level, like an underdeveloped photo. If you make a mistake at this point, you might be lucky enough to rewet it and lift it (mostly) off with a dry paper towel. Or try rubbing lightly with a slightly wet nylon bristle brush to convince the paper to let the color go. I finally had to lightly scratch off a few goofs from my wasp painting with an x-acto knife after the paper became tired of all this wet reworking. But be aware that if you try to paint over any areas where the paper has been manhandled like this, you will be very, very, VERY sorry!!! Once it has been roughed up, even the best paper will never take the paint quite right again.

Step 5: Gradually increase the contrast
This is where those staining colors more than make up for their unforgiving stainy-ness. How, you ask? Well, the beauty is that you can wash over them repeatedly to get ever-increasing color density without the previous washes lifting off or muddying (much). But be sure to keep some areas pure and white and 100% paint-free for maximum contrast with your deep many-layered washes. This is important – these white spots will be the focal points of your image. So if you lose the white of the paper, the whole game is lost.

Step 6. Remove the tape (before and after views)
Oh no, I forgot to mention the tape! Okay, here is the retroactive suggestion… Use drafting tape to mask the edges BEFORE YOU START! Sorry. Here’s the trick -- you can use a T-square to draw a rectangle well inside the kraft tape holding your paper down. Then put a long piece of drafting tape along each edge of this rectangle. Use only drafting tape, never artist tape or masking tape, and rub it down firmly to ensure complete contact, especially where the pieces overlap at the corners. Use additional tape to mask all the way out to the kraft tape. If you had done this at the beginning, then you could peel it off now at the end to get these nice, sharp, crisp borders. And if you want to be completely annoying, you could start signing your paintings backwards so everyone assumes they are digital prints. All this makes for good, head-scratching fun at your gallery openings.

Okay, that's all. Cut through the kraft tape with a utility knife to get your paper off the drawing board, and then trim off the tape edges with scissors or paper cutter. The time required to complete a painting this size is normally 2 - 3 days. Longer if you prefer to sleep at night. Anyway, thanks for reading this far, and congratulations on your new bug painting!

If you are interested in seeing this particular wasp in person, please visit the Art Murmur Gallery booth at the Bridge Art Fair this week in Miami, FL. Details are at www.artmurmur.com.

Thanks everyone who turned out for the opening of You Are Here at Bandini Art last night (Nov 3). The reception was a smash, and I sincerely enjoyed this opportunity to present my latest work, to catch up with friends and family, and to talk with numerous other gallery visitors. Many thanks for being part of the evening's success!

If you missed the opening but are interested in seeing the show, it will be up until December 8. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 5 pm.

Bandini Art Gallery
2635 S. Fairfax Ave
Culver City, CA
310-837-6230

Special thanks to Amy and Polly for the photos!

Nov 3 opening at Bandini Art in Culver City

2007-10-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

My opening at Bandini Art in Culver City is coming up (reception is November 3, 2007, 6 - 8 pm, thanks... see you there!). I have thirteen new watercolor paintings I will be showing on the walls of the gallery. Out on the floor, on raised platforms, will be the delicate and evocative assemblage sculptures of Ashley McLean Emenegger, my partner in this production. I have finished all the work at this point (I think), and framed all but one piece. Of course, it's always tempting to pull out the glass on a few of the others and make final "adjustments," but who has time for that old obsessive-compulsive business these days? I'm past all that (one hopes), and anyway I'm barely making my deadlines as it is. So far the watercolor goddess has been kind and has not required any do-overs. I would tear up every tenth work as a kind of sacrificial offering, just to be safe, but the occasional restart amounts to about the same thing.

Anyway, here is the most recent (and possibly the last) of the paintings for the Bandini show...

Paul Pitsker, Dryer, 2007, watercolor, 25 x 18 inches

As always, you can see more recent work at paulpitsker.com.
Many thanks for your interest.

Desert road trip, plus Turrell's Skyspace

2007-10-13T23:48:00.000-07:00

I drove out to Palm Desert today to drop off the work for a group show at Modern Masters Fine Art. Rumor is I will be showing with Michael Sokolis and Trek Thunder Kelly -- both artists I admire -- among others. And the local art scene out there is quite happening... Even if I didn't love driving in the desert, it would be still worth the trip just to visit Imago Gallery, Buschlen-Mowatt, and Modern Masters Fine Art.

On the way back, I stopped by Pomona College for a reception for artist James Turrell, who has just completed Skyspace, a site-specific environment behind the Edmunds Building (at 6th and College Way, across 6th Street from the Coop). This is worth the drive out to Claremont to see, even with the inevitable traffic. During daylight hours, it resembles nothing more than a conservatively designed (I would even say "corporate") courtyard with a square hole in the canopy covering a reflecting pool. So don't go during the day. Go at twilight, when the lights gradually came on -- this has two magical effects. First, the color of the sky changes to the complement of the color projected on the canopy. This is not a subtle optical effect, or at least it wasn't tonight. You actually see the sky overhead change color, both through the hole and outside the canopy. The day was completely overcast, and I would have described the sky initially as a nearly neutral gray, perhaps just slightly on the blue side. As a violet light gradually illuminated the canopy, it had the effect of changing the appearance of the cloud cover to an intense metallic green. The second effect is a convincing optical illusion that the square, sharp-edged hole in the canopy has become a solid object hovering in space. It really looked like a square painting of the sky suspended from the actual sky (which was really the violet-colored canopy). After marveling at this for about 45 minutes, the lighting suddenly changed, becoming bluer and brighter, which made the sky suddenly darker and oranger. The effect was so dramatic and uncanny that the assembled crowd burst into spontaneous applause. As I watched, this hovering sky square went on to become a brilliant blue, and then a deep violet. It was mesmerizing... The artist was there, beaming like a proud parent (and looking like a sunburnt Santa). The color in these photos is pretty much exactly what I remember seeing. They were taken in the span of about 20 minutes, so you get an idea of the dramatic changes. But what's lost is the three-dimensional effect -- the floatiness of the skyhole, as it were. For that, you need to make a trip to Claremont, preferably right around twilight...

Various views of James Turrell's Skyspace, a site-specific environment at Pomona College, Claremont, CA

Latest work

2007-09-29T23:17:00.001-07:00

These are the watercolor paintings I've finished in just the last eight weeks. (I've been working like a maniac to complete new work for upcoming shows.)

Everything, 2007, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

Pinch, 2007, watercolor, 15 x 10 in.

Through, 2007, watercolor, 10 x 7 in.

Touching, 2007, watercolor, 25 x 18 in.

Now I've set aside the bugs for a while to work on some desert goldfish. I will post more images in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, visit www.paulpitsker.com if you want to see more of my work. Thanks for your interest.